Choose your own path and succeed on your own terms.
[Music]
i
felt pressurized by society’s needs and
did something you didn’t have your full
interest in
have you ever felt the need to pursue
someone else’s dreams for yourself
because that is what society expects of
you
hi i’m rather venkatesen and together
let’s explore how we should not let
society’s standards of happiness
and success dictate our life choices
when i first started playing in golf
tournaments i wanted to know what i
should be scoring so i asked my dad
he gave me a very broad answer and told
me to just enjoy the game and have fun
i wasn’t satisfied with this answer so i
asked my coaches
they gave me a much more specific answer
and then i told my dad what my coaches
told me
then he said that i shouldn’t have asked
them because now
i will feel pressurized to achieve what
they expect of me and i won’t be
focusing
on the bigger picture during my
tournament
my main thought throughout the whole day
was only
what my coaches had said to me the
moment i hit a bad shot
i was immediately brought down by this
thinking i wouldn’t score what i needed
to
which greatly affected my performance
in the end my dad was right i did not
score well
because i was pressurized and i felt
stressed about matching up to my coach’s
standards
a few weeks later i had another
tournament and this time
i decided to listen to my dad i stayed
calm
and i enjoyed the game and guess what i
placed first
and i won the tournament from this i
learned that happiness was the key to
unlocking my success
success shouldn’t be confined to the
conventional ideas of being wealthy
living an upper class lifestyle living
up to society’s beauty standards
or being famous success should be a
personal standard
reaching for the highest status in us to
achieve the most we can
by unlocking our fullest of our maximum
potential
everyone’s success should be unique and
significant to themselves
i strongly believe that each of us are
incomparable
so why are our achievements compared
if we are all unique then why are we
weighed on the same scale
of prosperity accomplishments fame and
popularity
let’s dig in deeper for a while now i’ve
noticed that many of us
are under society’s influence we do
things that others want us to do
even if we don’t enjoy it some people do
what others want them to do
because it makes them happy seeing
others happy by fulfilling their
expectations
but sometimes it is okay to just be
selfish
and do what you truly want to do in life
we only have one life
so let’s make use of it social media
plays a big role when it comes to
standardizing success
especially among the youth in my
generation
bill gates once said don’t compare
yourself to anyone else in this world
if you do so you’re insulting yourself
when we see these influencers posting
about their privileged lifestyles
we begin to think that people will only
love us if we are exactly like those
influencers
we also start to compare ourselves but
success
is about learning to define ourselves
through constructing our own identities
by working hard being happy and being
unique
not working towards being like other
people through the 14 years of my
experience so far
i have learned that i cannot do
something and not enjoy it
and expect to find happiness and success
within myself
we should all know that our future lies
in our own hands
and we have the capability to do
whatever we want to do with it
we shouldn’t have to follow the
stereotypes and standards of society to
be successful
as long as your success makes you happy
and
satisfied with yourself that is all that
matters
so as i conclude my speech today i would
like us all to remember
that success is not the key to happiness
but happiness
is the key to success thank you
you